Another project? Sure, why not

So today, one of my colleagues on the Warzone playtesting team said something blasphemous like "Undead Legionnaires are rubbish*" and I took that as a challenge to prove him wrong.

Mich Cie and I are currently running a small contest over on the Warzone Facebook group, and I figure what better way to prove my colleague wrong - who is, in fact, Mich Cie - than by doing it publicly? So here we go with my own 'entry' into the contest. The challenge is to complete a thematic 500 point force and when it comes to the Mutant Chronicles setting, what's more thematic than an endless horde of space zombies marching on a beleaguered defensive line?

Giant shoulder pads you say?

Well, okay, apart from that.

Yeah, that's right, space zombies.

Now, the rules of the competition say that the list must be legal (for standard OOC - I should add that part) but it does not have to be competitive. However, I don't see why we can't do both! After punching a few numbers into a calculator, this is what I came up with: The Eastern Push!

Characters:

Nepharite of Algeroth (90pts)
--Devouring Darkness (5pts)
--Cleansing of the Void (15pts)
--Total: 110pts

Necromutant Leader (50pts)**
--Bringer of Dark Tools (Free)**
--Portal of Undeath (20pts)
--Total: 70pts

Troop Squads:

Undead Legionnaire Squad
--15x Undead Legionnaires (150pts)
--1x Necromutant Squad Commander (19pts)
--6x Valcheck HMGs (48pts)

--Total: 217pts

Necromutant Squad
--5x Necromutants (95pts)
--Total: 95pts

Army Total: 492pts

That's right. Not a single Razide!

Now, I will be honest. I started out with two max sized Undead Legionnaire squads but although I could *just* about fit in the Nepharite, the addition of the Dark Symmetry powers really started to chip away at those squads, with compromises in weapons (fewer HMGs) or zombies (10 per squad would still be okay.. right?). But while I loved the idea of fitting up to 33 models into a 500 point list, I could see that it wasn't going to work very well on the tabletop.

The point Mich made was that Undead Legionnaires need a lot of other models in the list to really make them work and they rely heavily on Dark Symmetry buffs to make them more effective. As a Bauhaus player I know all about this because the same thing is often said about Hussars.

So, I dropped the second squad in favour of some bodyguards for my Nepharite, who I am calling "Quinzel".

Quinzel has three jobs in the game.

1) Don't die.
2) Push the space zombies forwards and keep them on their feet.
3) Stab vehicles until they stop shooting.

One of the problems this list will have is a low number of activations, so Cleansing of the Void is an early game spell to give the Undead Legionnaire squad some resiliency to all that fire they are going to have to soak up. Once the zombies have mostly fallen to pieces in the late game it can be cast on her and her retinue instead.

Devouring Darkness ticks the box for "Always be debuffing" - a mantra every Dark Legion player should live by. Casting D type powers doesn't cost DL spell casters any action points so even a cheap one like this is worth taking. If Quinzel is engaged by one or more capable CC enemies or worse yet, a character, you can get this pseudo attack in for free - potentially stunning your opponent - before you make your own CC attack.. and stunned models are hit in CC automatically. Nice.

Next we have the Necromutant Leader, who will be attached to the Undead Legionnaire squad, with both Bringer of Dark Tools and Portal of Undeath. The latter is a mechanism to help replace space zombie casualties by raising the enemy models from the grave, while the former will be essential if we actually want to kill some enemy models in order to turn them into space zombies.

32 shots in one activation sounds great (like.. Kodiak great) until you remember that 27 of them are at RS 11, and will almost certainly be over half range. By boosting the strength of the squads weapons, we are at least minimising the number of shots that hit but fail to penetrate the target's armour.

ST 12 on the 9 Kratach ARs
ST 13 on the 6 Valcheck HMGs
ST 14 on the 2 Belzarach ARs.

Not too shabby!

Next time I will briefly cover the two squads and start the task of gathering up all the miniatures I need for The Eastern Push!

* He may not have actually said that.
** The wrong points cost you say? Hm..

Another little project off the check list

I finally got around to sending off my vehicle wound tracker designs to Troll Trader a few weeks ago and I received the templates today. A few things seem to have gone awry with the cutting process but I can still totally make something usable out of these..

Somehow the hole didn't get cut, so I drilled it out. Note to self, drill it out before you glue the two halves together so that you can sand it down properly afterwards..

The long rectangular nameplate was supposed to be kept, but it seems like they threw it away with the rest of the cut outs! Doh! I made one up from a few layers of plasticard.

This had the added advantage that I could 'test' the idea of the wound tracker being made from acrylic as well, with the idea being that whatever colour the rest of the tracker was, the nameplate would be in opaque white acrylic so the player could write on it.

More putty..

I added some interior details to the passenger compartment (two Cap Light Infantry backpacks and an M50 assault rifle) then finally took the plunge and glued the front and back sections together, rendering the interior more or less inaccessible for further painting.

After that, more milliput, and more sanding once that dries. I'm so close to actually being able to start painting the exterior!

Almost there

Interiors done, ready for for final assembly of the fuselage and then we will see what gap filling is required above the cockpit and below the passenger compartment.

I see a grey helicopter and I want to paint it black

..but I cant. At least, not yet.

I finished filling the gaps and then re-doing the intentional gaps between the panels, theb sanded down the Milliput so that it is hopefully smooth enough that it will blend in with the resin once painted. Spent a little while trying to hot water bend the landing gear into the right shape as well as the passenger compartment floor on both halves. It looks straight now but I guess I will find out when I try to glue it together.

However, I've decided I want to paint the interior and the easiest way to do that is to paint it before glueing the two halves of the fuselage together. This is complicated by the fact that the two points where the parts join will both have gaps that need to be filled and sanded, which would make a mess of a primer coat if I put one down.

So Ive primed only the interior for now, which I will paint tomorrow. Then I can perform the necessary putty work and sand it, mask off the interior and prime the rest of the LARC..

Breaking the habit of a lifetime!

I recently backed the Kore Aeronautics kickstarter for their L.A.R.C aircraft so I could use it in my small Capital force for Warzone (it makes a pretty good counts-as Emancipator). This KS had a very fast turn around of just a few months and when it arrived yesterday I decided that no, I would not put this in my hobby closet to be built 'later' just like all my other KS rewards sitting in said closet.

I would build it right now!

Er..

Despite the number of parts, actually building the LARC Talon is pretty easy. The tricky part is the cleaning of the parts prior to assembly, and some parts will need to be straightened in hot water. The landing gear / skids and the back piece that connects the rear half of the passenger compartment and the tail (part 3, below) will both need it.

It seems the easiest way to build it is to attach the 1s and 2s together to make a front and rear sub assembly. Then attach part 3 and do your best to line things up, then the tail .

Several hours of sanding later to make the curves of the fuselage match up.. it looks pretty good even when loosely assembled and held together with blu tack! Of course, next step is gap filling followed by even more sanding..

Finishing up some other things..